Image by Ciarán Ó Muirgheasa from Pixabay
To survive as a pilot, you frequently must ignore your intuition. Doing what you do normally can get you killed. Two situations are illustrative.
A stall develops when the wings lose lift because of too high an angle of attack. When it happens, your control surfaces feel like mush – you have no control. The immediate sense is that you are going too slow, and you are falling. Hence, a common reaction of inexperienced or insufficiently trained pilots is to open the throttle to gain speed and pull back. But the stall has little to do with speed but with the angle of attack, which only gets worse if you pull back. The result is a downwards spin with catastrophic consequences.
Flying inside a cloud (instrument flying conditions), with no horizon, is nerve-racking and sure death to the inexperienced. When you enter a cloud, the sounds change, and it feels like you are going down and gaining speed. Your instinct tells you to pull back, which leads to a stall and a downwards spiral.
In both the stall and in instrument flying you must do what does not come naturally. To recover from a stall, you must put the airplane nose down and gain speed, until the airplane is again responsive to the controls. When flying in clouds, with no visibility, you must overcome body sensations and only trust the airplane instruments; look at the data and react accordingly; ignore what you would instinctively do under normal flying conditions.
Too many times leaders opt for the comfortable, the expected, the well-worn path, to address new problems. Many crash by doing so. Examples abound in business and academia. But let me address two academic scenarios that are being repeated many times these days. Because of demographic changes, COVID effects, and overall change in attitude towards higher education, many institutions are seeing a significant drop in enrollment with resulting budget pressures. Some other institutions are seeing the budget pressures because of stagnant tuition (necessary for affordability) and/or falling state support in the case of some public institutions. The solution of many is to “mandate”, as a strategy, larger enrollment, something that commonly worked in the past. The problem is that in many cases the pool of applicants to increase enrollment is not there and/or the increase in enrollment results in pressures on the service systems, education delivery systems, or financial aid systems; all to the detriment of quality education. Increasing enrollment in wealthy privates is particularly interesting since they must subsidize their very high tuition for students with financial need. The more students they admit, the more money they need for subsidies, and the larger the budget pressures. This is the classic “pulling back on the stick” in the middle of a stall that will lead to a death spiral. Opening the admission doors in order to increase enrollment was a safe bet in the past but may not be an available option today; or it may require a far more systematic approach to make it possible.
The next example is far more controversial and fuller of passionate positions – Division I college athletics. The NCAA has imploded and with the new compensation rules for athletes, schools find themselves hosting professional leagues – at least when it comes to football, basketball, and baseball. I am told a top college basketball recruit to a top program may demand, and get, income in the six figures per year. Ironically, that is considerably more than what a baseball player in the minor leagues makes. As predicted, the Division I teams and conferences are quickly segregating into the “haves and the have-nots”. The haves are the few that are contenders to national championships, make money and can attract and pay the talent. The have-nots are the majority that, although fielding good teams, do not have much of a chance to become national contenders. The recent scramble of teams looking for opportunities to make more money by realigning conferences reflects this sad, and embarrassing, situation.
The reaction of the leadership of many universities has been predictable and disappointing. Old and new athletic directors and coaches go around making the usual promises. “This is a new era for our program. If we can only get better infrastructure, better training rooms, lockers, stadiums, etc. we will attract the very best players and once again we will be contenders for the national glory”. After all, that is their career goal.
Athletic programs are commonly a small fraction of a large institution budget, on the order of 5%. But they commonly account for 20%, or more, of the institutional debt. Most do not produce net benefits to the broader enterprise. From a financial point of view, decisions to continue pouring money into some of these programs is a death spiral for the sports program and the institution at large. I am NOT advocating to eliminate competitive sports. I am advocating to look at related decisions the way we look at everything else. What are the prospects? What is the realistic expectation? What is the return on investment? The answers to those questions should shape the approach and the strategy. In other words, develop strategies that are true to the numbers and can bring back control to the institution.
I learned a lot from my years as a pilot. I learned that practice makes perfect. I learned that experience counts. I learned that a distraction and a small mistake can get you killed. Those are all valuable lessons that apply to life and leadership. But I also learned that there is a big difference between the routine and the extraordinary. To handle the latter, and save your life, many times requires to go against instincts and convention. The same is true in leadership; it takes courage.
Rafael, muchas gracias por el Newsletter. Me encantó la analogía con la experiencia de pilotear un avión y el liderazgo académico ¿Cuándo nos saludamos?